TV PHOTOS STRONG, BUT REPORTS WEAK

Televised coverage of the climax of the siege in Waco, Texas, illustrated the strengths and weaknesses of TV news.

For immediacy and vivid pictures, TV is unparalleled. The images of the Branch Davidian compound burning with an untold number of men, women and children still inside were worth more than a million words. This is just as well because the words that accompanied the pictures were worth almost nothing.

Around the dial, it was first reported that two cult members escaped before the blaze engulfed the buildings. Later, that number was elevated to six. Then 20. Then as many as about one-third of the 95 people who were thought to be inside. All were based on unconfirmed reports.

Also, there was no detailed explanation about the timing of the government assault or why the FBI felt it necessary that one be mounted. TV reporters did not have access to anyone in a position of authority for on-camera questioning.

The accountability blackout extended to Waco-area fire departments. News correspondents repeatedly asked but were unable to come up with an answer to why it took almost a half-hour for firefighters to arrive.

The government was making certain, however, that its version of how the fire started was being widely circulated. The official explanation was that at least two Branch Davidians torched the compound after the assault started.

WTVJ-Ch. 4 stuck with the story the longest and had the advantage of having Kerry Sanders reporting from the scene via satellite and David Bloom, who had recently returned from a month in Waco, back in the studio.

The NBC-owned station also made the courageous decision to use CNN more than its own network feed. WTVJ News Director Sharon Scott had the journalistically correct explanation. "We used NBC, too, but we went with the one that had the best pictures."

South Florida TV stations resumed normal entertainment programming about 3 p.m., more than two hours after the fire began, with most pertinent questions, including the death toll, still unanswered.

This is the drawback of live coverage. It is the unfiltered news gathering process rather than reporting; and it is often subject to government spin control.

The normal journalistic procedure, designed to screen out the dissemination of erroneous information, is to check, then double-check, unconfirmed reports and to get both sides of a story. This cannot be done on the fly, a fact viewers should always keep in mind.